2013

Ford spent nine months justifying the 47-mpg fuel-efficiency rating of its new 2013 C-Max Hybrid--before it bowed to public pressure and lowered it to 43 mpg late Thursday. While its three latest hybrid models continue to sell well, the latest reversal draws attention to Ford's challenges when the...

We've long known the best way to get people interested in electric cars is simply to let them drive or ride in them. It's easy enough to tell people they're quick, smooth and near-silent, but people are naturally skeptical of something they aren't familiar with. That includes politicians, but just...

For Ford, it's all about "customer satisfaction"--a phrase it's repeated hundreds of times over the past nine months. During that time, it's grappled with the realization that not only did its 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid not achieve anywhere close to its 47-mpg EPA rating, but the shortfall had made...

The 2013 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive is the latest electric vehicle to have undergone the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's crash test procedures. Following frontal crash, side impact, and side pole impact tests, the Electric Drive was awarded four from a possible five stars overall...

Thorough pre-delivery testing is commonplace in the modern automotive industry, and means the shiny new cars we pick up from dealerships are of higher quality than ever before. It's always nice to know just how much care is taken to ensure a car is perfect before you're handed the key though--and...

Ask the average NASCAR fan whether they think the sport should go electric, and the response probably wouldn't be repeatable in polite company. Fans of electric cars already know they can be fast and with success at events like Pikes Peak, they can win against gasoline vehicles too. But NASCAR is...

If you want an electric car, there are now 14 different models with plugs to choose from. But if you want an electric convertible, there's just one: The 2013 Smart ForTwo Electric Drive Cabrio. The little two-seat battery electric vehicle with the roll-back cloth roof is now on sale along with the...

Three months ago, we speculated that Tesla's next product might not be the delayed Model X crossover, but an all-wheel drive version of the Model S. Guess what? It turns out we might have been right. Sources for The Verge say a new all-wheel drive Model S could debut as soon as 2014, possibly in a...

It's now been more than five months and 5,000 miles since I took delivery of my 2013 Tesla Model S. The four-year wait after I put down my deposit in 2009 created a huge burden of pent-up hopes and expectations. With the initial glow of ownership now dulled by the daily routine of real-world...

It's dangerous to assume, as the saying goes. And a lot of assumptions about why people buy electric cars are wrong--including that they only do so because they're "green," meaning to help the environment. Now a new attitudinal survey shows this isn't much true for Tesla owners and fans. A study by...

It's been out in the U.S. for over a year now, but today marked the first delivery for a Telsa Model S on European soil. The first 2013 Tesla Model S delivered in Europe rolled out of a Tesla Store in Norwegian capital Oslo, according to the Tesla Motors twitter feed. Norway is Europe's most...

The prices just keep falling on plug-in electric cars. The latest to announce a new, lower lease price is Smart, which cut the monthly cost of a three-year lease on its 2013 ForTwo Electric Drive Coupe from $199 to just $139. That's not the lowest single electric-car lease we're aware of in the...

It's still fairly early days for the Tesla Model S, and while the car is finding fans across the globe, it's still seeing various updates and option packages that early buyers didn't have access to. Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has recently announced a new line of option packages and pricing for...

There can be few tougher tests for a car than as a taxi in New York City. Tough roads and even tougher traffic makes the city a workout for any vehicle, but one cabby is enjoying the Nissan Leaf he's driving as part of the city's electric vehicle trials. In fact, driver Uppkar Singh Thind described...

Since November 2006, our family has always owned at least one plug-in car and one powered by gasoline. For almost two years, our fleet has been a Nissan Leaf electric hatchback, and a used 2008 Toyota Prius. After two years and nearly 42,000 miles of driving the Leaf, however, our once high-tech...

Readers of our monthly analysis of the Canadian plug-in electric car market know two things well: a) the Chevy Volt dominates, with sixteen consecutive months of sales leadership; and b) Canadian plug-in figures are hard to come by. Our posts on June plug-in sales in the United States and Canada...

Wearable computers and electric cars. Two things you might not think have much in common--but one app developer is exploring ways of linking the two cutting-edge technologies. Glasstesla is the brainchild of software engineer Sahas Katta, and pairs certain car functions with the abilities of...

You'll often see an "80 percent" metric used when discussing electric car charging at a fast charger. There's a very good reason for this: While that first 80 percent may fly by in only a quarter to half hour, the last 20 percent takes one heck of a lot longer. It's that last 20 percent that is now...

That noise you heard yesterday afternoon? That was the sound of the other shoe dropping. Ford said yesterday that it will "enhance the on-road fuel economy performance" of the 77,000 2013 hybrid models it's sold over the last year, in an effort to "improve customer satisfaction." The announcement...

Nissan has announced its full list of changes for the 2014 Nissan Leaf--and as you'd expect, less than a year after the revised 2013 model debuted, it's fairly small. The updates are largely detail changes to equipment levels, everything else continuing pretty much as the 2013 model left it...